Heretofore in the conventional presses, there is normally employed a bed, a reciprocal slide, a power drive for the slide and an apparatus for feeding a stock strip into the die on the bed. Normally, the outer edges or some portion of the strip means in tact longitudinally and moves a part from station to station through final forming. A die set including a die or plurality of longitudinally spaced similar dies are mounted upon a lower die shoe secured to the bed. There is a corresponding punch for each die secured to the upper shoe and mounted to the reciprocal slide. Conventional means are provided for positioning the stock in the die and for removing the similarly formed articles. These presses are very expensive and can range $50,000 and $300,000.
Heretofore there has also been employed transfer presses which alone are similarly expensive and include a die set having a series of longitudinally spaced dies secured upon the lower die shoe and anchored to the bed, and a corresponding series of punches secured to the respective slide, together with a transfer mechanism built into the press intermittently moving the respective workpieces from one station to the next. This press cannot perform the motion and function used in conventional presses.